Anand Sharma to attend 3rd CICA Summit in Istanbul

New Delhi, June 6 (ANI): Union Commerce and Industries Minister Anand Sharma will attend the 3rd Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) Summit in Istanbul, the largest city of Turkey, on June 8.

He will represent the Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, at the Summit and will be assisted by Ms. Latha Reddy, Secretary (East) and R.S. Jassal, India's Ambassador to Turkey and other senior officials.

A founding member, India has actively participated in the CICA process since its inception.

Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee attended the 1st Summit in June, 2002. Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Murli Deora represented Prime Minister at the 2nd Summit in June, 2006.

Meanwhile, Vietnam and Iraq will join the CICA as members during the Summit in Istanbul.

CICA is a multi-national forum for enhancing cooperation towards promoting peace, security and stability in Asia.

The idea of convening CICA was first proposed by H.E. Nursultan Nazarbayev, President of Kazakhstan, on 5th October 1992, at the 47th Session of the UNGA.

The Charter of CICA was adopted at the 1st Summit Meeting held in Almaty on June 4, 2002.

Sixteen Asian states joined the CICA at the time of its inception.

Presently CICA has 20 Member States namely-Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, China, Egypt, India, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Pakistan, Palestine, Republic of Korea, Russia, Tajikistan, Thailand, Turkey, United Arab Emirates and Uzbekistan.

Seven countries (Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Qatar, Vietnam, Ukraine and USA) and three multi-national organizations, including United Nations, have observer status.

The CICA Secretariat, the administrative body of the CICA is located in Almaty, Kazakhstan. (ANI)